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One of the tendencies among progressives, and among statist conservatives, is to give government far more credit for invention and creativity than it deserves. They point to projects funded or supported by government as evidence of the value of larger, centralized projects, but they forget you cannot prove a negative.

Because government is so intertwined in modern innovation and basic research, it is nearly impossible to prove what would be happening without government. People have forgotten that that big projects, like the Transcontinental Railroad, were actually boondoggles that catered to political cronyism, not genuine innovation. (There were better managed, more profitable railways that were crushed by the federalization led by the robber barons.)

The market, left to its own, might fill gaps. We simply will never know.

My thoughts on this are prompted by too many people claiming we need more and more and more federal spending, supported by higher taxes on the "rich"…

A September 2015 report from the Brookings Institute demonstrates that significant increases in top marginal tax rates would have minimal effects on both income inequality and the federal budget.

This report was prepared by William G. Gale, Melissa S. Kearney, and Peter R. Orszag. It should be stressed that Orszag was Pres. Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. Nobody can claim Orzsag is a conservative or libertarian — he is an excellent analyst.